


Is This How It Ends?

by Professor SS19 (ProfessorSS19)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:41:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25959208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorSS19/pseuds/Professor%20SS19
Summary: Severus visits Albus Dumbledore's tomb - and has one question to ask.  Friendship/father son relationship.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore & Severus Snape
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	Is This How It Ends?

**Author's Note:**

> Short one-shot, looking at the relationship between Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape.

_If it’s all just a wicked game_  
_I’ll show my hand; try to place the blame._  
_If it’s all just meant to be a tragic end,_  
_Right from the start._

_‘The End’ ~ Klergy_

**Is This How It Ends?**

He stands before the white smooth old stone and reaches out one hand so his fingers can stroke and trace and caress. The physical sensation is unfamiliar, but he has been here so often in his mind that he knows here so well- maybe part of him has always been here, trapped, or held. He inhales and the very sound stutters and staggers and fractures even as it reaches his lungs. His forehead crumples and creases and metal flushes from his punctured lower lip and his knees buckle and yield. The grass that catches him is soft and damp, like his cheeks. He wants to touch once more, to hold and grasp and cling, but he knows he is not worthy and when he reaches he retracts and buries his face in his palms, and he knows that strange and broken and guttural noise is himself. Sobs. Whimpers. Cries.

Where is the supportive arm, now? Where is the soothing voice, now? Where is the soft touch, now? Where is the warmth and the welcome and the whispering, now? Where is the one who promised, who vowed, who swore, who

Lied.

His spine curls further. His skin tastes of salt and heat and saliva and sweet. His knees are wet now, as are his sleeve cuffs. He pulls his hands away, wanting to be pretend someone has tenderly grabbed his wrists to expose his face and in doing so won the battle and claimed the prize of providing comfort, and he would so willingly surrender to accept, the welcome and the whisper and the warmth. The promise and the vow and the -

He grips the grass and his nails claw through the dirt, soil gathering in the newly formed fists, arms straining straight, bleary blurry vision not so deformed to dissolve the image of the tomb – though even if he were blind, he would still see it, all of it, every thing and even if he clawed out his eyes still those pictures would linger and torment and haunt and hinder and pain and caress.

“Did you know?” He whispers, to nothing and no one and yet also something and someone – if the promise had been kept - “Did you plan this, too? Was it all a game? Was I a game? Did you plan this?”

* * *

_“This, my dear boy, is my most genius plan yet - I am sure you will agree.” The voice was so light, but Severus had long since been blinded by it, he just chose to do nothing about it. Instead he allowed its presence to relax his shoulders, shoulders suddenly adorned by the Headmaster’s surprisingly strong arm. It was not heavy to him - once, perhaps, yes, indeed, too much to bear, the weight of expectation and worthiness. Where once he would stop and stumble, now he would strengthen and straighten, bolstered and boosted. “Indeed, Headmaster?” That damned smile too, a shadow of course of Albus’ reflected beaming, because it seemed to follow always in the wake of that bright and brilliant light. “Indeed, Severus.” The teasing was gentle, “A three headed dog.”_

_“In a school, Headmaster? A school with hundreds of curious...children?” He raised one dark eyebrow, “You have offered better strategies before.”_

_“Nonsense! Who would argue with a three headed ravaging savage canine?” The hand rubbed his shoulder, “Too many heads to pay attention to. I did however listen to you, and decide that more measures are needed.” They paused mid stride, and Albus faced him now, “What is your greatest talent, my boy?”_

_“Enthral me.”_

_A chuckle, to bring further lightness to a chest once so heavy with the weight of terrible decisions and choices and paths taken and not taken. “Modesty, in the quest for flattery. I see straight through you, Severus.” Even amongst the continued jesting, a modicum of seriousness settled over Albus’ voice, and there could be no argument with the words, nor there could be no disagreement with the greatest wizard who had ever lived, “I shall indulge, as your greatest talent will now become of much use to me Severus, should you oblige. Your greatest talent is your ability to see and use and evaluate logic. Others would flounder at the very notion of logic, reason, inference. Yet for you, it is a most exemplary art.”_

_“You speak in paradoxes; logic is not an art. Logic is a science.”_

_“And yet, I hear that potions making is both a subtle science and an exact art...?”_

_A flush to pale cheeks, and a slight removal from the close physical touch, “You mock me?”_

_“Of course not. I absolutely agree, and it is why the subject has always eluded me. Provide me with a certain method, and allow me to demonstrate excellence that way, not through subtleties of mood and inconsistencies of ingredients.” Albus raised a pacifying hand, “Your mind is endlessly fascinating to me Severus; as we have explored it through Occlumency, or as I have had the privilege to understand you further as we have become friends. I believe, most strongly, that your talent as a wizard comes from such a fantastic mind.”_

_Still, so many years on, he did not know how to accept such compliments._

_“I think perhaps you could even out-think me, my dear boy, if I allowed you such an opportunity.” He started to shake his head at Albus’ incredulous statement; there could never be any out-thinking of Albus Dumbledore, the Leader of the Light had no flaws, no weaknesses, no chinks in armour that sparkled gold in every form of sun. But Albus would hear nothing of it, “So, has my flattery convinced you that your logic is what I need most, in this moment, to help me protect the Stone?”_

_“Anything, Headmaster.”_

* * *

He feels the warm tears track down his cheeks, reinforcements waiting behind the burning corners of his eyes, collecting where they can, touching the moisture against his nostrils, tainting his lips with salt. Despite himself, he licks those tears away, as if tasting them can give him something to focus on, some clarity, some distraction, but instead he simply remembers all the tears he has cried before and how, before, there had always been someone to help him. Someone to help him piece himself back together, to cover the scars, to stop the bleeding, to ensure that he could go on, because of course he had to go on, he had to carry on, he had to do this, for the

“The greater good.”

That voice speaks to him from nearby and yet also across the greatest distance he could have ever imagined, across dimensions, across realms, across planes of reality. He would lift his head, but his imagination has been cruel before, and in this moment he cannot endure any more cruelty, he cannot endure any more lost chances, he cannot endure any more wicked games.

“Severus.”

He shakes his head, gently at first, and then wildly, so his hair whips across his face and the tears that still cling to his eyelashes release and meet with the dew on the grass, or to perhaps collide with his previously shed tears, but he did not care to know. “You are not real.”

“I will implore you to use that logical mind of yours.”

“I am, you are not real.”

“Yet here I am, my boy. Here I am. Look up. Look at me.”

His hands are scraping patterns in the dirt, letters, numbers, symbols, with no meaning nor comprehension, but they help him to focus on his breathing, and usually, normally, in any other circumstances they would help him to block out the voice that was now pervading his mind, invading, where it was not welcome, where it would never be welcome again, and yet where it was also the thing he now most craved. “Did you plan this?”

His words linger on the air and still he does not raise his head.

“You will need to be more specific, my boy.” There is no teasing now, and any affection is emphasised with heaviness of concern and something he knows all too well to be guilt. Fine, let there be guilt, let there be concern, let there be affection, but only if it is partnered with guilt, it was not fair that he was the only one to be crippled with such guilt. He offers no response, and of course saintly Albus bloody Dumbledore would fill that silence with words.

“Did I mean for Tom to incorrectly interpret that he needs to kill you, in order to kill Harry? It was part of my calculations - “

“No.” His voice is harsh and rough even to himself. “That is not what I meant.” Still he stares at the ground, still he stares at his knees, and he wonders how many times he has ended up on his knees, and when did he decide that it had become acceptable for him to kneel to anyone? Especially a liar.

“Then I remain unclear, Severus, and you will need to ask me directly.” There appears to be no hurry in his tone, but Severus supposes that the dead have no need to hurry anything. So he raises his head, and looks to where the voice appears to be coming from.

There, as if nothing happened, stands Albus Dumbledore. Tall, effortlessly calm and calmly imposing, expression one of curious and guarded, ever so guarded, concern.

As if nothing happened?

As if they had not stood atop the Astronomy Tower that fateful night. As if they had not stared at each other across the distance between them. As if everything that he had ever stood for and fallen for did not matter. As if the soft, terrifying, haunting plea from Albus’ lips had not hung between them, and between his ears for every moment since, awake or asleep. As if he had not looked into those blue eyes that had guided him from tragedy to emptiness to progress to belonging, and raised his wand, and spoken the words of the darkest, blackest and cruellest curse that could ever exist.

As if he had not, by request, as if that mattered to anyone beyond them, killed the man where he stood, and not looked back, never looked back.

Anger that carries such power it could make him flinch with the heat and wilt with the weight lances through every nerve and tightens his very chest. He wrenches himself to his feet because he promised, a very long time ago, he would never be on his knees before Albus Dumbledore again -

Or perhaps Albus Dumbledore had promised he would never need to be on his knees before him again -

Like with everything that concerned the older wizard the boundaries and promises were blurred.

“Did you plan this from the start?” He hisses at Albus, who tilts his head just slightly to the side to regard Severus with evident confusion, “Plan what? Severus, I understand you are...upset...but...”

“Did you plan for me to do this, from the start? Is that why you befriended me? To ensure you had someone to be able to do this, all of this, for you?” He hisses the words but he can no longer control them, and they spill from his lips like a litany of prayer, words he cannot stop thinking, words he cannot stop whispering at the back of his mind. Had this been, always, forever, a wicked game, had this always been a pretence, had he always been the pawn when, for a long time, he had considered himself so much more than a pawn? Had Albus Dumbledore played him so very, very well, had accurately assessed every single vulnerability Severus possessed and then with brilliantly cruel accuracy healed them all, resolved them all, so he had someone ...

Perfect?

If it is a false expression of offence that suddenly transforms that wizened face, wizened even in death, it is one of startling clarity, so much so that his own breath catches in Severus’ chest.

Slinking silence.

And then.

“No.” Albus shakes his head, just once. “No. It was not.”

Lingering silence.

“I am guilty of many things, Severus. I am guilty of being so tethered to the Light and its victory that I have made terrible, terrible decisions that I will atone for in another life. Befriending you has never been one of those decisions; that was entirely natural, and for me at least, a happy happenstance in this long life of mine.” Hands move to clasp together before him and Severus notices for the first time that both are healed.

Accusing silence.

“You needed me to say yes. You knew I would say yes.”

“If you had said no, I would have found another way; but you did not, because you know, the same as I, as although that decision was terrible, it was also right. It was right because of all it sets up now. Now, what Lord Voldemort does not yet realise, because he will never understand why our friendship was natural; why it was natural for me to ask you to commit such a deed; why it was natural for you to say yes.” Albus took a step forward, “Your logic would lead you to the same conclusion as your heart did, the evening you agreed in my office; you feel as though you wore it on your sleeve, when you agreed, but you did not. That was all of you Severus, saying yes; to save me humiliation, to grant us a strategic advantage, to allow you to do more to protect the students; and most of all, to free me from the pain. But it was never planned. This was not how I wanted things to end; but I have to accept that this is how it will end.”

He wants to believe, so badly. It is so natural for him to believe Albus. It is like his shadow.

“You could run, Severus.” Albus says finally, after Severus offers him nothing in reply. “There is nothing to say you should walk to Tom now, even though he will soon call for you. You would certainly prove something of a distraction.”

“I cannot. I have not told Potter what he needs to know.”

“There might be other ways.”

“I am the most certain way. I presume our paths will cross one more time.” Severus folds his arms across his chest, “Besides; for your plan to succeed, you need the Dark Lord to be over-confident, and the way he becomes that, is to believe he is the master of the wand; and he cannot, as yet, because he has not killed me. For your plan to have its best chance of success, you need me to willingly walk to my death at his hands, and pray that he does not have the time to make it humiliating as I spared you from.” He seems remarkably calm now, perhaps even numb would be the better descriptor, for he seems able to breathe, and he seems able to stand, and his cheeks are dry and his fingers no longer shake, and his knees no longer tremble. In fact, there is almost something of a lightness now, as if, as if, as if this

“Naturally, Severus.”

“You expect a great deal, still.”

“Would you change it, if you could?”

“Change what?” The returning question is delivered fast, too fast, as if he wants to evade it, as if he needs more time to think, but Severus does not want him to think. “Would you change it so it was not me?”

“Would I have someone else kill me, and place themselves in mortal danger?” Albus rewords Severus’ question, and Severus’ single nod is confirmation enough. Those blue eyes that have challenged his black for attention drift now, wander away from Severus’ face, to focus on some point neither of them can see. Something moves Severus’ legs and he takes two steps forward so they are closer now, and his hand rests on the cold stone of Albus’ tomb, and for the first time there is some sort of stability provided by its presence.

“If I was to say yes, I would have to consider what else I would have lost.” Albus murmurs, finally, but not with finality. “I asked you, Severus, not because I knew you would say yes, although that was a risk I did not wish to take. I asked you because you were the only person I could ask.” Albus breathed in and now those startlingly piercing eyes were back on Severus’ and if he could have looked away, even, he would not have done. “You were the only person I could ask, because you were the only person who understood. You were the only person I could ask, because you were the only one who had seen. You saw me when I mourned for Mr. Diggory, you saw me when I mourned for Sirius, you saw me, even back when we were not quite friends, when I mourned for James and Lily and everyone else we lost in this war; everyone else we will lose.”

Severus says nothing.

“You saw me when the Ministry infiltrated the school and undermined my every decision; I recall, you used whatever opportunity you could to champion my name, even when I did not need it. You saw me when I made mistakes; never once did those mistakes challenge your faith in me. You saw me in times of war, and you saw me in times of peace, and not once did you begrudge me for how I had to change the moment the Dark Mark was re-emerging on your left arm that you let me stare at for hours on end, you remember, that evening, when it could have been the end of the world, right then. More importantly than just seeing me, Severus, you saw why. Even when I had angered you and disgusted you after you realised what will have to happen to Harry, you saw why. You have always seen the why; because you have always looked beyond me; and that is something I have valued, as highly as I value your support, and as highly as I value your fantastic mind; and as highly as I value your friendship.”

Severus, still, says nothing.

“Would I change what I asked you to do? No. Not because I do not realise it has destroyed you. Not because I do not realise the sheer exact pain it has caused you. Not because I do not realise how much you wish I had not asked you.” He closes the distance between them, and the younger wizard does not flinch away when he does so, nor as Albus raises one hand to touch Severus’ elbow, or then to grasp it, and hold it steady. “What I asked you to do, when I asked you to kill me, is the result of a friendship that changed me, and changed this war, for the better, though you will not believe that, my boy. So no, I would not change it. If that means you turn away from me now, and do not look back, I will understand; but here, at the end of all things, I will be honest with you; and I will also adamantly, passionately and vehemently deny that I planned this from the start. I never realised how important you would become to me Severus, but I am most, most grateful that I have realised.”

Severus glances down to the hand on his elbow, and he is sure it is his memory that encourages a little warmth to blossom there, where there should be tangible contact, except one of them is alive, and the other is not.

“Do you understand, Severus?”

He considers.

“You will not be alone, when you face him. I will not let you be alone. I will be there, for you, as you were, for me. In your last moments. I am glad you were there, Severus. I would have had it no other way.”

The words do not quite reach him, because Severus is thinking. Severus is thinking of all the times he questioned his worth to Albus, and as if was completely natural, Albus reinforced that Severus had no worth to him beyond their friendship, their intellectual sparring, their games of chess, their passionate debates, and the unwavering support between the pair of them. He remembers those times when Albus knew just where to look to meet Severus’ gaze; he remembers the multitude of silence conversations, whether affirming or confirming or conforming; he remembers the thoughtless comments of their colleagues, noticing the bond, noticing the strength, noticing the loyalty. He remembers how people sought his opinion on how Albus was; he remembers how people called him Dumbledore’s Man whether sarcastically or genuinely; he remembers the shock and the confusion in Minerva’s eyes, the first time they came face to face after that fateful night on the Astronomy Tower.

He moves his hand to rest on Albus’; still, the contact is imaginary, in his head, a nostalgic whim of a man tracked by tragedy and seeking for sentiment, but since when did that mean it was not real?

Those blue eyes are still seeking an answer, and he knows the answer is so much more than does he understand; the question is asking if Severus forgives Albus, if Severus appreciates Albus, if Severus has learned anything from Albus, if Severus recognises Albus, and most of all, those unspoken sentiments that never breathed life, because what was the point of saying them and admitting them when there was a war to be won or lost, lives to be saved or lost, opportunities to be seized or -

Lost.

This is how it ends.

“I understand, Albus.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! ~ SS19


End file.
